After a packed and exciting first week in Mexico, the second week has been a simultaneously motivating and scary reminder that we're here to complete a significant project of our own, beyond just learning about the incredible work being completed here already. From feeling like a student still training and learning, this week has required courage to make decisions, take responsibility, and to become the driving force for our project to manifest itself, rather than waiting for someone more knowledgeable and experienced to do it for us.

At the beginning of the week, we finished our training in Design Thinking, learning about this human-centred and collaborative approach to designing effective solutions to concrete problems. It was useful to ground the beginnings of our project in this systematic, iterative approach, to base our ideas firmly in our empathy for the survivors of gender-based violence, not our assumptions or preconceptions of their experience.

Alongside meetings with Las Sabinas, we've been able to use this approach to define more clearly an outline for our project, and to start coming up with ideas as to how to achieve this. I've been working closely with fellow Laidlaw Scholars @Maisy Langan and @Jezlyn Montas to brainstorm ideas for a social media campaign for Las Sabinas, to promote their scheme 'Florenciendo Sobre Ruedas', or 'Blooming on Wheels'. Their scheme aims to provide community for survivors of gender-based violence through rollerblading and art.

We've delegated tasks between us to work to our strengths, with Maisy taking the creative lead, and Jezlyn looking into feminist history to motivate our intentional content design. I've been facilitating meetings and organisational documents to collaborate effectively with our 16 volunteers from the community. So far, I've faced logistical challenges with this, given language barriers and incompatible working hours, and have needed courage to be decisive and clear in communication. It doesn't come naturally to me to be assertive, but I've learnt throughout the week that when managing a team of nearly 20 people, it's impossible to organise a meeting everyone can attend, or to make a decision everyone will be happy with. I've learnt to balance collaboration with progress, and to use the valuable insights of my team to push our project forward, rather than remaining static with indecision. It's been daunting to organise people with so much experience and knowledge, but I've begun to realise that leadership is more about facilitating the best use of everyone's collective experience and ideas, than one individual needing to be qualified enough to direct those supporting them.

Together, this week, we've laid the foundations for what should be a collaborative, effective and enjoyable project to work on for the next 4 weeks. I'm looking forward to continuing to grow my own confidence, and develop my courage to face challenging situations.